


Wagasa

by kamja



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamja/pseuds/kamja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I fulfilled a request to write a fic about Yukie and Ohno as normal people who fall in love. Yukie is a shop owner and Ohno moves into the building next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wagasa

On Thursday morning, Yukie got to the shop and saw a pile of cardboard boxes by the back entrance.

“Good morning, Yukie-chan,” the owner of the building next door was an elderly woman who kept her grey hair short and permed. “My new tenant is moving in today.”

Yukie remembered that Mrs. Tamiya mentioned this last week. The front of the building was a housewares shop, but the spacious back unit above the garage had been sitting empty for some time. The new tenant was from out of town and had sent his things ahead.

“He’s due on the train in one hour,” Mrs. Tamiya looked at her watch. “My, I hope he’s handsome.”

The rest of morning passed uneventfully in Yukie’s stationery shop. A couple came in to select some papers for wedding invitations. A disheveled man with ink stains on his fingers picked up his usual order of markers and pen nibs. He was a manga artist, and he was always behind schedule. At lunchtime, she went through the back to take a break, and found that her door wouldn’t open.

“What?” she rattled the doorknob loudly. “Is it stuck?”

She leaned hard on the door, and it suddenly gave way.

“Sorry!” she heard the voice before she saw the face. She stumbling clumsily out of the doorway and into the warm afternoon sun.

A man stood in front of her with a large cardboard box in his arms. He wore a green t-shirt and jeans which skimmed over his slim body. The muscles of his forearms rippled under his tanned skin, straining under the weight of the box. He gave her a sheepish smile. “I left my stuff blocking your door.”

“Ohh...you must be the new neighbor,” Yukie recovered quickly and straightened up. _Well, it looks Mrs. Tamiya got a handsome one after all._ “I’m Nakama. I own the store in this building.”

The man nodded. “The stationery store. I’m Ohno. Nice to meet you.”

“Well, if you need anything, just let me k--”

“When’s trash day?”

Yukie laughed, her eyes twinkling. “You’re fast! The burnables go out on Mondays.”

“Oh, ok,” Ohno flushed slightly, nodding again. He shifted the box. “I’ll...get going with this now.”

By the time Yukie closed up for the night, the boxes had been completely cleared from the back. She looked up at the back unit but didn’t see any of the lights on. The curtains had not been put up yet. Yukie caught a glimpse of a tall bookcase. Taking a post-it note, she stuck it on the door leading up to the unit.

_The market by the bank has better deals after 5pm!_

Thinking no more of it, she headed home.

The next morning, Yukie arrived at her back door and found a note stuck there. It was written in pencil, but the angular handwriting still looked like brushwork.

_They had a lot of daikon on sale for some reason._

She smiled and took the note off her door. The windows on Ohno’s unit now had curtains, but they were drawn tightly. Taking the pad of notes from her purse, she stuck another one on Ohno’s door.

_How about daikon pickles?_

The note was still there when Yukie closed up for the night. She sighed at the bright orange paper. The curtains were still closed.

*

_Don’t work too hard today._

Ohno’s reply was taped exactly at eye level on Yukie’s door, just like the last one. The morning news had put out a heat wave warning for the afternoon. Despite the short walk from the train station and relatively cool early temperatures, Yukie’s shirt was already sticking to her back. Ohno had drawn a small cartoon of a sun. All his windows were wide open.

_Do you have air conditioning in there? Stay cool!_

Later that day, Yukie was cutting some paper to fill an order when someone came through the front door, causing the bell hanging there to jingle loudly.

“Welcome,” she said, turning around. She jumped slightly in surprise. “Ohno-san!”

“I’m looking for washi,” he said by way of greeting. He had a sleepy but good-humored look about him.

“Sure,” Yukie instantly wondered just what Ohno did for a living. She led him to a flat file which held the large sheets of Japanese-style paper. “Are you working on a project?”

“Sort of,” Ohno quickly became absorbed in perusing the stacks of paper. A silence settled in around them.

“What...do you do for a living?” Yukie asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“I make wagasa,” he replied, pulling out a few sheets of heavyweight paper in red and purple.

“Ohhh,” Yukie nodded. Her family owned a few traditional oil-paper umbrellas for special occasions. She remembered that all of Ohno’s windows were open. It must be to air out the place when he varnished the handles and scaffolding. “That’s quite a rare skill.”

“I learned from my grandfather,” he pulled out another sheet. This one was bright yellow. As if aware that his succinct answers wasn’t doing much for the conversation, he continued. “It’s lucky that I ended up next to a stationery store.”

Ohno said the last part with a shy laugh. That was right. He didn’t visit the area before moving in. Yukie found herself smiling too. “Are you settling in well?”

“Yup,” Ohno gathered up the papers he wanted. “Dunno how to make daikon pickles, though. I tried to do it yesterday, but they were kinda bad...”

It was Yukie’s turn to suddenly feel shy, though she didn’t know why. She led him to the cash register. “Well...I could bring some over, if you’d like.”

He looked at her then, and she pretended not to notice as she rang up the paper. His gaze seemed to evaluate her, but it wasn’t unkind. “I don’t wanna trouble you.”

“Not at all,” she replied a little faster than necessary. She rolled up the paper neatly.

“Ok.”

*

It was next week. Yukie shifted the jar of daikon pickles in her hand and looked up at Ohno’s unit. The curtains were closed again. She rang the doorbell tentatively. A few minutes passed with no answer.

“Damn,” she said softly, looking at the pickles. She should’ve left a note last night. Pulling out her notepad, she quickly scrawled a message.

_Don’t eat these too fast._

She stuck it on the jar lid and left it by the door in the shade.

The day passed slowly at first. When Yukie peeked out the back during lunch, the jar was gone. She bit her lower lip and went back inside the store. The manga artist came by an hour later for his supplies. Then another customer came in with a large order and Yukie forgot about the pickles.

*

“Thank you, Nakama-san,” Ohno had his head out the window.

Yukie looked up as she locked the back door for the night. He was leaning against the window frame, absently working on a piece of bamboo in his hands.

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling up at him.

“D’you wanna come up for a bit?” Ohno asked at length.

Ohno’s apartment was sparsely furnished, leaving a wide space in the center of the main room. A red wagasa was hanging in there, drying. It was meticulously painted with a traditional swirling floral pattern in white. Yukie looked at it in wonder. That red paper was just sitting in her flat file some days ago.

“Just finished it the other day,” Ohno entered with a tray and cups full of chilled barley tea.

“It’s wonderful,” she walked a full circle around it. She looked curiously around the workspace. “Do you have any others?”

Ohno nodded. The tall bookcase that Yukie had glimpsed through the window had a few long boxes stacked in it. Ohno pulled one out and lifted the lid.

Yukie need just one glimpse to know that this one was different. Ohno opened it and set the wagasa on the floor. It was made of dark green paper and painted with a modern style that looked like it belonged on street graffiti than a wagasa. The stylized willow branches seemed to take a life of their own.

“I do the traditional ones since they sell easier,” Ohno said, looking at the green wagasa fondly. “But I like these types more.”

“Me too,” Yukie agreed. It was something she had never seen before. “It’s so vibrant.”

She felt a familiar sensation then, and when she looked up, Ohno was looking at her again in the same way as last time in her store. He turned back and pulled out another box. “I think this one would suit you.”

It was a deep, elegant purple. Barely visible black lines were painted on it, connecting and twisting into all sorts of designs - a menagerie of animals, mountains, clouds and stars. When the paper was tilted at an angle, the lines shone like tracks of light.

“Oh no,” Yukie shook her head, her long black hair swishing around her face. “It’s much too pretty for me.”

“I think you’re pretty,” Ohno replied quietly.

Yukie smiled bashfully and avoided his eyes. She glanced at the setting sun out the window. “I...should start heading home now. Can I visit again sometime?”

“Of course,” Ohno carefully folded up the green and purple umbrellas, placing them back in their boxes. He showed Yukie to the door. She slipped on her shoes and made to go.

“Good night, Ohno-san,” she said, walking through the door he held open for her. Before she could take another step outside, he grabbed her hand. Pulling her back into his arms, he kissed her on the mouth.

“Good night, Nakama-san.”

“Yukie.”

“Satoshi.”

Her lips were still stinging when she got to the train station.


End file.
